Christian Responses to Terrorism

The Kenyan Experience

Heath, Tarus

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781498229289
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

How should Christians respond to terrorism and terrorists in their midst? Terrorism is a global problem, and no society on earth faces it alone. The mainly Christian society of Kenya has suffered more than most as it attempts to counter the threat of al-Shabaab. Some pastors have asked for permission to carry guns. Many Christians support government military action, while others recommend pacifist stances, and strive for dialogue and reconciliation with the Muslim community. In this book, ten Kenyan Christian thinkers and practitioners share their experiences and insights. A response section from seven others, including a Kenyan Muslim scholar, enrich the discussion.

Part 1

Essays

1

Introduction

David K. Tarus and Gordon L. Heath

While many in America automatically think of 9/11, Boston, or Orlando when terrorism is mentioned, Europeans may think of attacks in Madrid, Paris, Brussels, or London. However, religiously inspired terrorism is not solely a Western problem. Asians and Africans have their own memories of horrors inflicted upon their neighbors and nations. One such nation that has had a significant history of religiously inspired terrorism is Kenya.

The Encyclopedia of Terrorism and Political Violence provides over sixty possible definitions for terrorism.1 While there is debate over the actual definition, the word itself comes from the Latin terrere “to cause to tremble.”2 In modern political usage the term arose during the days of terror during the French Revolution. The “terror” then was what occurred during the darkest days of fear, unrest, and violence, and it was used as a tactic to eliminate one’s enemies and achieve political ends.3

Terror and religion—what do they have in common? Sadly, a great deal. As many have noted, terrorism has been, and often is, in part, motivated by religion.4 As Mark Juergensmeyer writes, religion has “supplied not only the ideology but also the motivation and the organizational structure” for many modern-day terrorists.5 In fact, Juergensmeyer claims, since the 1980s, religiously motivated terrorism has increased at a phenomenal rate, and one US government official stated that religiously motivated terrorism is “the most important security challenge . . . in the wake of the Cold War.”6 Compounding the dangers associated with the evolution of modern-day religiously inspired terrorism is the new technology available to terrorists. As Walter Laqueur notes, “Science and technology have made enormous progress, but human nature, alas, has not changed. There is as much fanaticism and madness as there ever was, and there are now very powerful weapons of mass destruction available to the terrorist.”7 Those and other problems faced the government of Kenya during its recent crisis.

Kenya is a multi-ethnic African country with a population of roughly 44 million. Prior to the escalation of terrorism in 2011, Kenya had suffered three major terrorist attacks. The first was the bombing of the Norfolk Hotel in downtown Nairobi on 31 December 1980 that killed twenty people and wounded eighteen others. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) allegedly perpetrated the attack to retaliate against Kenya allowing Israeli troops to refuel in Nairobi before freeing 103 Israeli and Jewish people that were being held hostage in Entebbe, Uganda. The freedom operation, which was successful, was carried out on 4 July 1976.8

The second and largest attack was the twin bombings of the American embassies in Nairobi (Kenya) and Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) on 7 August 1998. The al-Qaeda-led attacks resulted in the deaths of 224 people, including twelve Americans, and left more than 4,000 people injured.9 A planned attack on the American embassy in Kampala (Uganda) was thwarted on that same day.10 Samuel Aronson observes that the terrorist attacks on the American embassies marked a shift in US foreign policy, for it alerted the US government to the reality and subtle nature of international terrorist cells that could cause massive damage to American properties abroad.11

The next major attack occurred on 28 November 2002, with the bombing of the Paradise Hotel in Kikambala, Mombasa. At the same time, terrorists shot a surface-to-air missile at an Israeli commercial airplane departing from Mombasa International airport en route to Tel Aviv. The missile missed the airplane, but twelve people died and eighty were injured in the hotel attack.12

Terror attacks have escalated since October 2011 as a response to Kenya’s military presence in Somalia. Prior to the Westgate Mall attack, Kenya had suffered at least twenty grenade attacks,13 probably even more, as some cases, especially in the poor North Eastern counties, are not closely reported by Kenyan media. Al-Shabaab has conducted successive small-scale grenade attacks concentrated in North Eastern (the regions bordering Somalia), Nairobi, and Coastal regions. The attacks have targeted churches, bars, hotels, markets, bus stations, police stations, and public transportation service vehicles. In fact, the Global Terrorism Index of 2014 ranked Kenya twelfth out of 162 countries on terrorism.14

On 21 September 2013, a group of four gunmen stormed the Westgate Mall in Westlands, Nairobi, shooting people indiscriminately before specifically killing those who could not recite the Qur’an or say Muslim prayers. The four-day attack left 67 people dead and at least 175 wounded. The mall was considered a prestigious shopping destination to visit, and a landmark of Kenya’s progress and development. It was also a major shopping destination for Western dignitaries, tourists, and visitors to Kenya, or those in transit to other East African countries. Hence, by attacking Westgate, al-Shabaab targeted a facility with strong Western connections. The Westgate Mall has since been rebuilt and reopened. The opening of the mall, including four new others such as the Two Rivers Mall, which is East and Central Africa’s largest mall, is an indication of the government’s resolve to win the war against domestic terror.

Other acts of violence in the recent past are the sporadic attacks in the Coastal regions of Lamu, Mpeketoni, and Tana River, in the months of June and July 2014. A group of young men, at least fifty in number, repeatedly invaded rural and urban townships over a period of weeks along the Coastal areas mentioned above, and dragged men out of their houses, either slitting their throats or shooting them at close range.15 The attackers specifically targeted non-Muslim men. This indicates that religion rather than “local political networks” was the cause of the violence.16 Religion also played a key role in the Garissa University College massacre that occurred on 2 April 2015 where 148 people were executed. Al-Shabaab also claimed responsibility for that attack. The four assailants, who were also killed during the attack, singled out Christians and shot them.

The Kenyan government has sought to put an end to such attacks, while at the same time attempting—not always successfully—to avoid unnecessarily antagonizing the Muslim population at large.17 The first large-scale response was Kenya’s military incursion into Somalia in October 2011, its first-ever regional military mission outside its borders. It sent troops to Somalia to keep the Kenyan border secure, to stop the prevalent al-Shabaab-led kidnappings and extortion of tourists along the North Eastern and the Coastal regions, and to end piracy in the Indian Ocean. The incursion into Somalia, known as Operation Linda Nchi (Swahili for Operation Protect the Country), was led by the Ken...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Editors and Contributors
• Part 1: Essays
• Part 2: Responses
• Appendix: Timeline of Some of the Terrorist Attacks in Kenya from 2011 to 2016